Still--when he
presently began his final retreat, he would carry away with him a lot of
the Mallathorpe money.
But before long Pratt indulged in no more reflections--sentiment or
practical. He had eaten all his sandwiches; he had drunk three-quarters
of the bottle of sherry. And suddenly he felt unusually drowsy, and he
laid his head back in his big chair, and fell soundly asleep.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE TELEPHONE MESSAGE
If Pratt had only known what was going on in the old quarries at
Whitcliffe, about the very time that he was riding slowly out to Barford
on his bicycle, he would not only have accelerated his pace, but would
have taken good care to have chosen another route: he would also have
made haste to exchange bicycle for railway train as quickly as possible,
and to have got himself far away before anybody could begin looking for
him in his usual haunts, or at places wherein there was a possibility of
his being found. But Pratt knew nothing of what Byner had done. He was
conscious of Byner's visit to the _Green Man_. He did not know what
Pickard had been told by Bill Thomson. He was unaware of anything which
Pickard had told to Byner. If he had known that Byner, guided by
Pickard, had been to the old quarries, had fixed his inquiring eye on
the shaft which was filled to its brim with water, and had got certain
ideas from the mere sight of it, Pratt would have hastened to put
hundreds of miles between himself and Barford as quickly as possible.
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